The present techniques relate generally to identification and/or characterization of brown adipose tissue. More specifically, the techniques relate to methods and systems for non-invasive imaging of brown adipose tissue that identify functional brown adipose tissue.
Brown adipose tissue (BAT) represents a promising pharmacological target for the treatment of obesity. Identification of BAT tissue in vivo may be used to evaluate new therapies aimed at inducing the production of more BAT or activating BAT in humans. BAT may be identified in vivo using anatomical 1H MRI scans designed to separate water and fat content in tissue, but these techniques do not assess whether the tissue is functional, e.g., activated. Other approaches for assessing the functional state of BAT in vivo include radio-labeled FDG-PET imaging, methods assessing perfusion such as contrast-enhanced ultrasound, 1H MRI (BOLD) methods assessing oxygenation-related signal changes in BAT, as well as thermal imaging methods assessing skin temperature changes with BAT activation. Of these methods, the only current clinically used technique is FDG-PET, which involves ionizing radiation.